My Heart Bleeds

The SF Chronicle has a piece that will have liberals tsk-tsking us ignorant right-wingers and the rest of the great unwashed in America:

As the war on terror heads into its sixth year, a new racial stereotype is emerging in America. Brown-skinned men with beards and women with head scarves are seen as "Muslims" -- regardless of their actual faith or nationality.

Law enforcement measures, politicians, religious leaders and the media have contributed to stereotyping Muslims as a race -- echoing the painful history of another faith.

"Muslims are the new Jews," said Paul Silverstein, an anthropology professor at Reed College in Oregon who studies the intersection of race, immigration and Islam. "They're the object of a series of stereotypes, caricatures and fears which are not based in a reality and are independent of a person's experience with Muslims."

We should be stereotyping them when it comes to areas like air travel and terror investigations. Stereo-typing in other areas should not be tolerated.

As for Muslims being the "new Jews", I don't think the analogy stands up very well because the Jews haven't attacked the west using planes full of people and suicide bombers.

Muslims must stand up and say with a loud voice that attacking and killing non-Muslim civilians is wrong. They must do it without using the "yes, but..." approach. The organizations that represent them such as CAIR and their ilk must be at the forefront when it comes to denouncing these acts instead of making excuses that it is everyone's fault but those who've perpetrated the crimes.

When the Muslim community does these things, they will not be stereotyped anymore by the general public. Americans are a tolerant people and will accept Muslims when Muslims make themselves part of the community at large and take the steps described above. As for the incidents described above, it seems tame when compared to how Catholics and other Christian denominations were treated. I'm sorry, my outrage meter didn't even go up a little bit.

Update: More Muslim worrying courtesy of the WaPo.

Muslims in the Washington area, even those unconnected to the defendants, wonder and worry about the implications of these cases for their community. Some feel that the prosecutions could increase the stigma Muslims have faced since Sept. 11. And many Muslims say the aggressive law enforcement has been far out of proportion to the offenses, which harmed no one.

Chandia's trial, for example, focused on favors he did for an acquaintance who belonged to a Pakistani group on the U.S. terrorist list. Chandia drove the visitor around the D.C. suburbs and helped him ship packages abroad.

Wait, wait...no, the outrage meter is still pegged at zero.

Update 2: I guess this is what you would call real profiling:

CAIRO, Egypt -- Palestinian militants who held two Fox News journalists hostage for nearly two weeks threatened in a statement posted online Saturday to abduct non-Muslims visiting the Palestinian territories and kill them unless their demands were met.

The statement, posted in the name of the Holy Jihad Brigades on a Web site frequently used by militants, said the group would kill any hostages it takes unless they converted to Islam, paid a ransom or Muslim prisoners were exchanged for their release.

Note: Post edited to make new post here.